Of the many roles Pat Robertson has assumed over his five-decade-long career as an evangelical leader - including presidential candidate and provocative voice of the right wing - his newest guise may perhaps surprise his followers the most: marijuana legalization advocate.

"I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol," Mr. Robertson said in an interview on Wednesday. "I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn't succeeded."

Legalizing drugs IS NOT the way way a sane and sober society interested in promoting the general welfare of its people goes about such things.

Make all the high minded (no pun intended) poetic and philosophical arguments you can but in the end it boils down to a group of folks who want to smoke pot without worrying about the man, nor the consequences to society as a whole.

So. YOU know better than to use drugs, but are perfectly fine with our government allowing others to become enslaved to the problems of drugs abuse.

Or the problems of Internet addiction. Or the problems of eating too many carbs (actually with their food pyramid, they actually encourage that, but that's another story). Or the problems of not getting any exercise. Or the problems of ....

64
posted on 03/08/2012 9:45:01 AM PST
by dfwgator
(Don't wake up in a roadside ditch. Get rid of Romney.)

The word I prefer is “Decriminalization”, that does not imply “Normalization”....in others words, you won’t get thrown in jail for using marijuana, but don’t expect to get a job or any government benefits if you do use.

66
posted on 03/08/2012 9:47:06 AM PST
by dfwgator
(Don't wake up in a roadside ditch. Get rid of Romney.)

We do not want our government involved in trashing our young people with legal drugs.

Since kids report that they can now get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer, it follows that the best way to restict their access to drugs is to make them legal for adults only (thus giving those who sell to adults a disincentive to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult market).

I would also however, allow employers to test for it and they should have the right to fire or not to hire those who do use.

Since you didn't use any qualifiers such as "employers of employees performing hazardous tasks - e.g., air traffic controllers," I take it that you truly do mean ALL employers should be allowed to require ALL of their employees to submit to drug testing, right?

In other words, you'd like to see employers be given carte blanche to extract body fluids from their employees, right? And to be able to fire them, even if the employees have only been using perfectly legal substances on their own time?

In other words: Employees = chattel.

That's a very strange opinion for someone with a regard for our Bill of Rights to hold!

That's the thinking behind the War On Drugs - it hasn't had any demonstrable effect on drug use, it has enriched criminals with all the ills that entails, but its supporters feel good about having laws against bad acts (however futile and counterproductive).

Now for the other half, where you’re completely backwards. A SANE society let’s people take their own risks.

Make all the bad puns you want but in the end it boils down to are we a free society of not? Free societies allow people to take risks, even unreasonable risks. Free societies allow stupid behavior. It allows people to eat unhealthy food, read in dim light, not dress properly for the weather, drink and smoke dope. Once you decide the government gets to start dictating which “bad” behavior is and isn’t acceptable you open the door for all kinds of stupid tyranny like we’re getting now, with socialized medicine and governments outlawing fatty foods all for “our own good” because they “know best”. Screw them, it’s not their life, it’s not their call. If I want to eat transfats (which I do) it’s my business, not theirs, not yours. If I want to smoke dope (which I haven’t in decades) it’s my business, not theirs, not yours.

As long as people are keeping the risk to themselves it’s really nobody’s damn business. At least in a free society.

"I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn't succeeded."

Pat - the war on drugs doesn't limit itself to marijuana. If you legalize it, then what about the war on all the other drugs - do you think it will just go away? Legalizing marijuana would be just the beginning. Other illegal drugs would necessarily soon follow, otherwise the war on drugs would not go away and you wouldn't have accomplished anything.

That's because the lethal dose of THC is so large you'd have to smoke 240 joints in a row to get there.

Actually, the LD for THC is so large that you couldn't smoke enough to die - it isn't physically possible. You would basically fall asleep (or pass out) long before you could possibly smoke enough to kill you. If you extracted it and concentrated it, then you could get a lethal dose.

As for people who say, "Well, the war on murder, robbery, rape, etc., haven't eradicated those crimes, so we should just stop fighting them too", is making a completely bogus straw-man argument. The difference between marijuana (and I might add alcohol) use and all those other crimes, is that all of those other crimes involve an UNWILLING VICTIM. I would also add that in my entire life, I have never seen anyone who was high on marijuana get into a fight, beat their wife/girlfriend, be loud, rude, and obnoxious, or "smoke" themselves to death. The same cannot be said of alcohol.

Furthermore, one of the reasons marijuana is so vilified is that it is supposedly a "gateway" drug, and its use will lead people to harder, more addictive, and more dangerous drugs. There is precious little evidence to support this claim. There are millions and millions of Baby Boomers out there who smoked pot for many years of their lives (and many, many of them still do, I am sure). In the overwhelming majority of those cases, they never did any harder drugs like cocaine or heroin, though some undoubtedly did experiment with LSD, Mescaline, Psiloscybin, and other hallucinogens.

Is marijuana consumption GOOD for you? No, it isn't, but then neither is alcohol consumption. But you have to put this in perspective: marijuana is NOT a narcotic like cocaine, heroin, methampethamine, etc. It is also NOT addictive like those other drugs. Habit forming? To a degree, but as a (arguably very mild) hallucinogen, it is not an addictive drug (I won't waste space explaining why that is).

People need to get past the knee-jerk "ALL DRUGS ARE EVIL AND MUST BE BANNED AT ALL COSTS" attitude. They are no better than Carrie Nation, whose crusade led to a failed experiment in government intervention that led to gangsterism, corruption, and an enormous and entirely avoidable waste of resources and human lives.

It doesn't make sense to have a prohibition against marijuana any more than it made sense (or was feasible) to have a prohibition against alcohol. And as evidenced by changes in state laws over the past 15+ years, legalization in some form is coming, and it is going to happen. When, and to what degree, and how much the government will seek to control (and tax) it is the only question.

81
posted on 03/08/2012 9:56:55 AM PST
by Sicon
("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell)

I spent 25 years working in the CA correctional system. 12 of those years in a Correctional Rehab facility. Weed is not the problem. Alcohol IS the main gateway drug. Always has been, always will be. When do we ban alcohol again? I believe the answer to all of this is personal responsibility. I should be solely responsible for whatever I do to my body. Society should not be obligated to bail me out medically, financially, or in any other way because of my decisions. If I deny someone else their rights by my actions-—that’s what laws and punishments should be for.

I'm not necessarily equating them....but how much government intrusion do you want to make sure people don't do those things? We want drunk drivers off the road, so what do we do, we monitor drivers...we don't ban alcohol, or make sure people don't drink. And if you truly want to decrease drug usage, use the power of social sanctions, as I mentioned earlier with how you no longer see pregnant women smoking or drinking....I don't necessarily think that's because they know it's bad for the baby, it's because they know that any one who see them doing it will be appalled, and they would be outcast.

85
posted on 03/08/2012 9:58:34 AM PST
by dfwgator
(Don't wake up in a roadside ditch. Get rid of Romney.)

Alcohol, while legal is still problematic. Kids still get it despite the laws and the fact that is so readily available makes such far more prevalent and easier than it should be.

So the "conservative" answer is to make MORE such drugs available, that will make society safer and people more productive?

Everyone running around drunk and stoned and high and spaced out as long as it is “legal” is a conservative argument?

Really?

Wow...

I think that sums up the gulf between conservative and libertarian rather succinctly, why Reagan always said Libertarianism is the heart of Conservatism, but never said they were equals. Conservatives understand responsibility sometimes goes beyond self interests.

“We now also have all these kids born with mental problems for life from using pot and other things while the baby was in the womb.”

BS. There is absolutely no evidence of this. There is also no evidence that it causes brain damage or any irreversible brain changes. In fact, prior to prohibition, it was prescribed for menstrual cramps, labor cramps, PMS and morning sickness. Queen Victoria was the most famous patient.

Now, Alcohol is 100% proven to cause fetal damage. It is 100% proven to cause permanent brain damage. And it is 100% legal.

Cannabis can precipitate the first episode of psychosis[.] If someone has a predisposition to a psychotic illness, such as schizophrenia, use of drugs such as cannabis may trigger the first episode in what can be a lifelong, disabling condition.

Gotta love those wiggle words!

Also: Source?

Also: And alcohol?

Also: I'm sure that it would be no problem carrying out a study to prove that inhaling gasoline fumes "could" pose a similar risk - Should we therefore also illegalize gasoline?

Yup. Everybody’s got their sacred cow, everybody wants control on some level. Even I’ve got a few, if you gave me a button to push that would eradicate the cellphone from American culture I’d push it so hard and so fast I’d probably injure myself, I see no benefit from them and lots of annoyance from their users. On some level I realize that my loathing of cellphones and my support of limiting their use is really counter to my usual small government instincts, but they still irritate me. So I try to be a little sympathetic to the drug warriors, we’ve all seen lives destroyed by addiction and I can certainly understand not wanting to see them legal because of it, but on this issue I can look past the personal to the big picture, which they can’t, but I can’t on cellphones. Everybody’s got a cow.

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